The Front Doors
by neonorne
Summary: 8 year old Sirius is not interested in the front doors. It's only Muggles out there. But one day a squirrel breaches Father's shields. Sirius tries to save it and discovers the world is not like they told him. AU because of the age of the Black cousins.
1. Prologue

_Disclaimer_:These characters and their universe belong to J.K Rowling. I just borrow them for my dreams. I make no money off them.

_I rated this AU, because it is now generally accepted as canon that the Black sister and Lucius are older than Sirius. But it was not originally intended to be AU. I started it long ago, before Jo gave us any information about the age of the Black sisters. When I picked it up again to finish it, I did not want to change it. I thought it was too interesting to see Sirius as a child play with his later enemies - and the dynamics between them was fun, too..._

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THE FRONT DOORS**

**Prologue: The House**

Sirius Black is an 8-year-old Wizard who lives at no. 12 Grimmauld place in the middle of Muggle London. His house is a large three-floor house with a basement and an attic. Mother and Father and Sirius' 6-year-old brother Regulus live there too. And Nanny, of course.

Teacher doesn't live there; he only comes to the house every weekday from 9 am to 3 pm. Sirius' cousins Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa Black come every morning through the fireplace in the front hall, to attend school with Sirius and his brother. Lucius Malfoy is the son of friends of their parents. He also comes to school every day through the fireplace. When school is over, they all leave through the fireplace again.

Guests often come to the house through that fireplace too, although adult guests who don't bring children sometimes apparate into the hall. If they are not visiting often, that is, because then they may apparate directly into the drawing room or enter by the fireplace there.

Nobody uses the front doors. It's nothing but Muggles out there.

The house of the Blacks is huge, with many places to play, as long as the adults don't get disturbed. Sirius knows the routines of his parents, so usually that is not a problem. Nanny doesn't count.

Father spends most of his time in his rooms in the basement where he studies Magic. He has an assistant who sometimes comes during the day to help him. The assistant never speaks to Sirius if he meets him in the hallway. He just disappears through the tapestry door that leads down into the basement as soon as he arrives. Father has a large study with a long wooden table covered in cauldrons, flasks, jars, and all sorts of strange and glittering instruments, all of them strictly forbidden to touch. Sirius has touched, but carefully, nothing has happened, and he hasn't been found out. Outside the study there is a small corridor with three more doors, one of them is always locked when Father isn't there. One of the rooms is sometimes empty, sometimes filled with caskets and boxes and chests which Sirius can find no way to open. The third room is full of cages, which sometimes hold smaller animals. Sirius has seen glimpses of them, but that room is mostly locked, too. But sometimes he has heard small piping and scratching sounds through the door. It doesn't seem like a nice place for small rats and rabbits to live.

Mother has her rooms on the first floor. The two glass cabinets on each side of the fireplace in her drawing room are filled with all kinds of strange things, some look like instruments of sorts, some look like pieces taken from dead animals. There are old daggers in there too, and Sirius would really like to know what's inside the richly decorated, different sized silver boxes. But the glass doors are locked, and Mother tells him sternly not to try and open them, because what's inside may be dangerous for an underage Wizard. He has tried, but the glass made his fingers burn when he touched it. Then Mother worked some Magic on him that made his fingers swell. The swelling made his blood throb in his fingers so he couldn't move them until she lifted the spell several hours later.

Mother experiments with Magic too. She uses the house-elves to try the new kinds of Magic she has heard of. The family has two house-elves, Annyma, who is an old female, and her son, Kreacher. Mother has never let Sirius watch her doing any experiments, but Sirius knows about them because he has sometimes heard her talking to guests about them.

Mother entertains many guests, she tells Sirius this is because his family is very important in the Magical world, and they have what she calls an obligation. And sometimes Sirius as the elder son is expected to sit and be polite at the tea table in the drawing room. It is terribly boring, but fidgeting is not wise. Mother tells him that he is the heir of the very Ancient and Noble House of Black, and he must know that whatever wrong he does as the heir will be a disgrace not only to his parents, but to all the generations of Blacks who have proudly striven to uphold the best traditions in the Magical world through seven centuries.

Sirius has sometimes managed to be nice and sit still and not be asked to leave the room to be punished afterwards, and then he has overheard what Mother and her guests are saying to each other. But he still doesn't know much about her experiments. Mother usually remembers his presence when she starts telling her guests about her Magic, and asks him to leave the room.

The best places to play outside the nursery are up in the huge attic, the back stairs only Nanny and the house-elves use, and the several empty bedrooms on the second floor. There are a few rooms on the first floor, too, where the furniture is covered in white sheets. But there one must be quieter, because Mother's rooms are on the other side of the main stairs. If Mother isn't down in the garden or on the ground floor somewhere, that is. The ground floor is often empty between meals, but there are too many breakable things down there in the elegant parlours, and the children are not supposed to be there. It's a place they only go to when dared to bring something back to the nursery, or to hide in a cabinet somewhere while the adults are eating.

The Magical garden at the centre of the house is not so fun. It is about the same size as all the rooms downstairs put together, and the door leading into it is placed in a parlour on the ground floor. But because it's made by Magic, you need a wand and a spell to be able to enter. Sirius as an under-aged Wizard is not allowed to have a wand. That means the garden is a place where it's not possible to be without adult supervision.

Sirius and Regulus are allowed to play freely in the garden, as long as they don't trample the beds of the exotic flowers, disturb the peacock, break the boughs of the trees or the bushes, or foul the waters of the beautiful and centrally placed fountain by throwing objects into it or even wading in it. But the exotic flowers grow everywhere, boughs break easily and they don't need to do anything to the peacock to disturb it - the peacock seems to get disturbed by the mere presence of two little boys. And what do you need a fountain for, if you're not allowed to even touch the water in it on hot summer days? But Mother says there is no need for that - if they want the pleasure of cool baths on hot days, the house holds three bathrooms, one of them with a reasonably sized sunken tub. They may be allowed to play in the water there with some selected clean toys - if they have behaved themselves recently, asked nicely and washed themselves properly first. Regulus likes it, but Sirius gets bored very quickly- when he's tired of the water, then what? In the garden, you could have played in the fountain but still had the grass, and the flowers and the skies, the ivy completely hiding the walls of the house, and robins singing.

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**Author's Note:**

Yes, I know, no Magical garden in Grimmauld Place mentioned in canon. Just because Harry didn't see it doesn't mean it never existed, right? ;)

_About this prologue_: If I had started the story today, I'm not sure I would have included this kind of prologue. It's a little boring, this listing up of all the contents and people of the house. But it was kind of interesting to write it: think through what would have been significant to the eight year old Sirius, and include only that. Was a good exercise in order to get rid of a too adult perspective, and get into the young Sirius' mind. I still like it enough to include it here.


	2. The Squirrel

_Disclaimer_:These characters and their universe belong to J.K Rowling. I just borrow them for my dreams. I make no money off them.

**The Front Doors: The Squirrel**

Sirius and Regulus are in the garden with their parents who are drinking tea. It is a warm, late afternoon at the end of May. The boys are excused from the garden table and are supposed to be playing on the grass. But they have just been told off for running and shouting too loudly. So now they are only sitting on the grass. Sirius has an angry frown; Regulus hangs his head. None of them says anything.

Then suddenly a squirrel comes hopping on its hind legs towards the two boys and stops only a few yards away. Its nose quivers in a funny way as it sits and looks at them.

There has never before been a squirrel in their Magical garden. Sirius stares at it, then slowly lowers himself down on his stomach and watches it intently. It has black eyes, the sun glitters in them, and its reddish brown fur looks as if it will be so good to touch.

'Look!' Regulus happily cries out. 'A squirrel!'

He gets up and sets out towards it. Sirius grabs his ankle and hisses under his breath:

'You're scaring it, you idiot!'

But it's too late. The squirrel has already been startled and is running towards the willow tree behind the garden table. Regulus falls flat on his stomach because of that ankle grabbing and starts to bawl. Then Mother gets out of her chair to lift up Regulus and set him down hard on his feet. She slaps him a few times around the face to make him shut up.

It ought not to work, shutting him up by hurting him more like that. But it does.

'What is this,' she snaps at both of them, 'why can't the two of you play quietly out here for once! A squirrel! Do you really need to fight over that! It's not going to want to play with any of you anyway, what are you thinking!'

Sirius says nothing; he just breathes heavily. It was a stupid thing to do, grabbing his little brother like that, and Regulus doesn't deserve to be slapped for it. But why can't his little brother ever be quiet when it really matters? The squirrel won't want to come back now. Surprisingly pretty it was, so small, so alive.

'I don't want squirrels in my garden,' Father says in a level voice. He never gets so annoyed by loud shouting and crying as Mother does. 'It will only gnaw on everything and get at the eggs of the birds. Real egg thieves those squirrels. Don't understand how it got in here. Guess I must look into those protecting spells again. Did you see where it went, Sirius?'

Sirius slowly shakes his head. He did, it's up the willow tree now. But Father sounds like it won't be good for the squirrel if Sirius tells him where it is.

He's right.

'Oh well,' Father says, 'if I see it again, I will have it killed. Just a nuisance those things.'

'Let's hope there aren't two of them in here,' Mother says, 'or they will start breeding. It's really nice how we have been able to get the robins to nest here, so nice to hear them sing. You are right, we certainly don't want any egg thieves! But the important thing right now is to look into the shielding spells. If that squirrel can get through, goodness knows what will be coming in next. I don't understand it - where's the weak link? I thought you put every protecting spell possible on the house and the garden - what can you have forgotten?'

Father looks a little annoyed. Mother has not seated herself at the table again; she stands right in front of Father and holds down with her right hand the newspaper he was just reading.

'I really feel this is something that cannot wait,' she says. 'We should be looking into it right now. Didn't you keep a list in your study of all the spells on the house?'

The parents finally agree to go inside and look at that list. The boys are allowed to remain in the garden on their own for a little while. But first Mother reminds them that it's bedtime soon, and they must remember to observe the rules of the garden: Stay out of the fountain and the flower beds, and don't disturb the peacock! They both promise to remember by reluctant nods. Then Mother and Father leave them alone.

Sirius looks a little guiltily at his brother. Regulus still has tearful eyes, and too red cheeks.

'I didn't mean to trip you, just stop you,' Sirius says,'but what did you need to make all that noise for anyway? Scaring the squirrel and annoying Mother, you really are so stupid sometimes - oh stop bawling like a baby all the time, will you!' he adds as Regulus' lower lip starts to trembe again.

Regulus really tries to stop.

'You - you don't think Father will kill the squirrel?'he says.

Sirius frowns at this. He rests his chin on his knee and starts plucking at the grass around him.

'I don't know,' he says. 'Maybe if he sees it again he will, but if he doesn't he may forget. If Mother doesn't remind him that is - she never forgets anything.'

'Do you think it really steals bird eggs?' Regulus says in a thin voice, still fighting to not bawl like a baby all the time. 'What does it want them for?'

'I don't know if it does,' Sirius answers, 'but if it does, I suppose it eats them.'

'Then it's bad!'

'Why? It needs to eat something. We eat eggs too, don't we; eggs are nice. You had one yourself on Sunday.'

'Yes, but I didn't steal it!'

'That's just because you didn't have to. Nanny put it on the table for you. But do you think they asked the hen nicely before they took its eggs away from it? I don't think so! Be quiet, look, it's coming down again from the willow tree - sit still this time, won't you, because if you scare it away again, I will slap you, too!'

They both sit still and watch the little squirrel coming into the evening sun from under the protective shadow of the willow tree. Regulus holds his breath and looks more at his big brother than the squirrel. But Sirius again sinks down to rest on his stomach. He stares intently at the squirrel and silently stretches out his right hand towards it.

He doesn't care if it steals bird eggs. It does need to eat; that's not just something he said to shut Regulus up. He doesn't want it to be killed. Father must not kill it.

The squirrel stops its quick, happy, unpredictable scampering. It sits up on its hind legs. Sirius feels how much he wants to touch it, hold it, carry it away. Bring it somewhere safe. His desire turns into a warm, vibrating substance inside. The invisible substance starts flowing out of him through the hand he holds outstretched towards the squirrel. The garden turns blurry around him. The small squirrel sitting in the sun is the only thing he sees.

The squirrel starts to slowly approach him. It hops a few feet on its hind legs, sits still, hops again. Sirius holds out his hand without moving, without thinking. All he does is feeling his own strong desire. When the squirrel sits right next to his fingers, he closes his hand around it and lifts it from the ground.

It's so warm and small, its heart beats so fast against his fingers, but it doesn't move. Sirius carefully, carefully stands up. He strokes the little vulnerable body with one of his fingers as he quickly walks across the lawn and into the house. Regulus runs next to him without daring to speak.

Nanny is in their nursery on the second floor. She is not at all happy about the squirrel. But Sirius knows she doesn't want to get Mother.

The boys often bring things into the nursery that Nanny doesn't like. Dirty sticks and stones, an occasional tadpole found in gardens and woods outside countryside homes they sometimes visit, a beetle eye or six nicked from a display barrel outside a shop in Diagon Alley. If Nanny calls on Mother, the boys usually manages to do away with the forbidden objects before she arrives in the nursery. They hide them up the chimney or under the mattresses of their beds and pretend to know nothing about them in front of Mother. That is, Sirius pretends and Regulus is silent with his face all red. When that doesn't work, as it often does not, Mother may as well turn on Nanny instead, and tell her off for not doing her job in teaching the boys proper behaviour around the house.

So Nanny gives in to Sirius' closed and determined face this time, too. But she makes him promise to take the animal somewhere else in the morning.

'Just this one night, mind,' she says. 'Or I will tell your mother!'

While Sirius watches and keeps stroking the squirrel to keep it quiet, Nanny lets Regulus help her make a nest for it in the big wooden chest where some of their old baby toys have been kept. These toys now need to be removed and put neatly on the floor beside the chest. Regulus is very eager to do the neatly putting thing. Nanny produces an old pillow for the little squirrel to build itself a cosy bed from, and a small bowl of water for it to drink out of. The lid of the chest is made of wicket, so there will be air coming in for it to breathe. Then Sirius is able to persuade Nanny to move the chest into the small neighbouring bedroom he shares with Regulus, and place it against the wall at the foot of his bed.

When all is ready, Sirius carefully sets the squirrel down in the chest while Nanny stands ready to put the lid on. She does this quickly and precisely; the squirrel does not get away. She also puts two heavy books on top of the lid, so the squirrel will not climb up and get itself out of the chest during the night. After this, Sirius feels quite happy to go to bed. The squirrel makes a lot of scratching sounds inside the chest for a while, but then seems to settle down.

He knows he must find somewhere else for it tomorrow. But for now it feels good to just lie in the dark and know he has a little furry friend sleeping safely next to his own bed.


	3. Downstairs

_Disclaimer_: Characters and universe still belongs to J.K. Rowling. I'm only borrowing...

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**Downstairs**

Next morning his mother enters the nursery just as Nanny finishes helping them into their clothes. Sirius is of course able to dress himself, but Mother still insists he wears old-fashioned shirts buttoned in the back for school, as way of school uniform. He can't reach the button in the middle of his back. And he doesn't mind having Nanny tying his shoelaces.

It's very unusual for Mrs. Black to be in the nursery at this time of the morning. She pauses right inside the door with her hands neatly folded in front of her, her rich lilac gowns falling gracefully around her, and watches as Nanny helps Regulus into his shirt. Sirius looks at her with great satisfaction.

He thinks his mother is very beautiful. Tall, upright and proud. There are no squirrel sounds to be heard in the nursery from the bedroom next door. It is all safe. He has hidden things from her before. He is not too nervous now.

'Thank you, Nanny,' she says as Nanny fondly pats Regulus at his back after finishing his last button. 'You may get Regulus' breakfast for him now.'

Nanny bows her head slightly and hurries out the door without looking back. Sirius looks up into his mother's face.

'What about my breakfast?' he says.

Mother extends her hand towards him.

'Your father and I have spoken with Teacher about you,' she says. 'Teacher thinks you need more challenges now that you are growing older. And we agree. So we want you to eat downstairs with us at all meals from now on. You are about to outgrow the nursery now.'

'Lunches too? Am I not to eat with the other children in the schoolroom any more?'

The schoolroom is also located on the second floor, on the other side of the main staircase. Teacher eats his lunch with the parents downstairs; he is not a servant. Nanny is supposed to supervise the children during the noon break. But she usually just leaves after bringing them their food. They are sometimes very rude to her. Especially Lucius Malfoy. Sometimes they have even entered her small room at the top of the back stairs during break. She can't lock her door, because Mother won't let her use a wand regularly. So now Nanny is usually hiding somewhere the kitchen way during lunch break.

The one hour of unsupervised play with his schoolmates is the best time of the day for Sirius. He doesn't want to trade this for lunch with his parents.

Mother smiles and draws him towards her as he takes her outstretched hand. She gives him a quick kiss on the top of his head.

'No, not lunches, ' she says.

Breakfast is served in the dining room on the ground floor. Sirius feels strangely awkward as he crosses its threshold. It's not a room he usually is in, and the paintings on the wall, the silver on the table, the smell of coffee and flowers and bacon are all unfamiliar to him. He usually has a bowl of porridge for breakfast. Mother squeezes his shoulder a little before she sits down at the table next to Father who is reading his morning paper, _The Wizard Inquirer_.

Sirius thinks he ought to be standing till told otherwise. Somehow it feels as if he's about to be punished. But he can't think for what. So he stands.

After a little while, Father looks up, then solemnly and slowly folds his paper together and puts it away.

'So,' he says as he watches Sirius. 'You are growing up, are you?'

Not much to be said in way of an answer to a question like that. Sirius says nothing.

'Well,' Father says and coughs a little. 'Sit down son.'

Sirius sits down. His awkwardness increases. Father picks up his paper again, Mother rings a little silver bell in front of her plate. The house elf Annyma suddenly appears in the room.

She is carrying a little tray with a bowl of porridge and a glass of pumpkin juice, both of which she places in front of Sirius. She spills a little of the juice on the tablecloth; her hands appear to have a constant small tremble. Sirius looks up as the elf leaves the room and realises that Mother has noticed, too. She stares disapprovingly at the small pinkish stains on the white cloth before she turns to frown at the quickly disappearing elf.

'She really is getting old,' she says to Father. 'I really do wish we could have a proper servant to wait on the table. Especially when we have guests. It's ridiculous to have guests being served by an elf.'

'You do have servants when we have important guests,' Father says pleasantly.

'Oh, I don't think asking around in other houses to rent their servants is very much better than having house elves at parties,' Mother says. 'A little better, true, but not much. And I can't do that constantly. I've been forced to feel embarrassed about the elves on several occasions lately. We ought to afford to have at least one maid.'

Father puts his paper down to look at her.

'Yes, I do agree,' he says. 'But then again, the prices I have to pay to get what I need for my experiments, especially these days you know, when we have run into some rather dangerous and unexpected difficulties, which means that we need to take it all to quite another level, and I can't buy openly at reasonable prices when -'

He suddenly stops himself and casts a quick glance towards Sirius. He makes a little cough and quickly sips some coffee he doesn't seem to want.

Sirius understands. His parents often do this. But he is not a baby anymore. Didn't Mother say he should eat meals down here instead of up in the nursery with Regulus and Nanny because Teacher thinks he is not a baby anymore and they agree? So why must they keep hiding things from him? What is it Father buys that little boys can't hear about? The things in the boxes and caskets Sirius can't open down in the basement no doubt. What's in them?

'I don't want to pay for both a maid and Nanny,' Father continues as he puts his cup down. 'There are Teacher's wages too, and he is not cheap - he has excellent references you know, and we do want the best for our boys, don't we? I am thinking - why can't Regulus eat down here with us, too? Do we really still need a nanny for the boys?'

'Well, the Malfoys and your brother also pay a part of Teacher's wages,' Mother says. 'And the boys still need help with their clothes, and some supervision. At least Regulus does.'

'I can dress myself, Sirius says. 'There is only the one back button, but -'

Father looks at him and Sirius abruptly stops himself. He wants to be counted as one not needing a Nanny. But he suddenly realises Father is talking about firing her.

'Yes, that,' Father says. 'Don't you think the boy is beginning to look a little too childish in that outfit now? Back buttoned shirts, I don't think that is suitable for him any longer, and Regulus does not need it either, and if that's the only reason to keep Nanny, I don't think –'

'He is too young for robes,' Mother interrupts, 'that will look pretentious, I can't have my boys seem pretentious.'

'Who is talking about robes,' Father says. 'I'm talking about shirts and trousers, and -'

Mother's mouth has turned very thin, and when she speaks again, she hardly opens it.

'Muggle clothing, 'she says, 'I can't believe you are talking about dressing your heir up as a Muggle!'

Father smiles broadly at her.

'Oh come off it, Mrs. Black,' he says. 'Look at the Malfoy boy, aren't his clothes elegant enough? I have never heard anyone suggest he looks like a Muggle, and there are never any robes nor back buttoned shirts on him! I am absolutely certain that someone like yourself, with your excellent taste, can design clothes for our sons that will be more than worthy of the House of Black without suggesting either nursery room or Muggle. And outshine the Malfoy boy too, come to that, without being anywhere near pretentious.'

Mother stares at him for a few seconds. But then she smiles, too.

'Well, but I still feel Regulus is too young to come down here,' she says. 'Besides I don't want to give him any privileges sooner than Sirius has got them, that will be unfair, and he still needs his Nanny I think, even if Sirius doesn't -'

She suddenly leans across the table and slaps Sirius on his right hand.

'No elbows on the table!' she snaps.

Sirius starts and quickly puts his hands down into his lap.

'I do see Teachers point, we have kept you in the nursery for too long, you really have no table manners - I do think I need to take more of your social education in hand, young man! Maybe I shall rethink this about Nanny. Maybe we do need to get Regulus started sooner, too. There is this question about Annyma as well. She will soon be too old to serve and will need replacement, then I think I shall be better helped with a maid than another house-elf.'

'Let's talk about this later, when we are alone,' Father says.

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Next chapter: **Games**. Sirius attends school with his cousins and the house teacher. What happens when Bellatrix discovers the squirrel? Teacher is not pleased...


	4. Games

_Disclaimer_: Still only borrowing the characters and the universe from J.K. Rowling and abusing them something terrible...

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**Games**

After breakfast Sirius enters the hall the moment Lucius steps out of the fireplace; the green floo powder flames dying down behind him. From somewhere out of sight sounds of the three Black sisters walking upstairs can be heard coming down the stairwell.

Sirius feels a lot more restless than usual. He grabs the banister and starts to jump up the steps with both his legs held together. As if they were glued that way by a powerful leglock. Lucius laughs at him, leaning on the banister at the bottom of the stairs.

'You think that's a challenge?' he says, 'These low steps? Come on! Bet you can't jump up the high steps of the back stairs like that.'

'Says who!' Sirius retorts.

'All the way up? Not walking one single step? Bet you can't do that.'

There is no way Sirius will back down from a Lucius challenge. The two boys slink through the ground floor parlours, anxious of being spotted by an adult and questioned now that the start of school is fast approaching.

The back stairs are much narrower than the main ones. There's no banister and the steps are definitely higher.

'Chickening out, are you,' Lucius says with a grin.

'No way,' Sirius answers, staring up the dark stairwell.

It's a real challenge, sure it is. Jumping with both legs together from the still position of steps as narrow as these will require a lot of strength. Especially if it's to be done over and over, all the way to the top.

Sirius soon decides that holding the wall is not cheating. Lucius laughs softly at him and then leaves him, running two steps at a time. He has made no jumping vows.

'See you at the top!' he cries down from the first turn of the stairs. 'Don't cheat!'

Sirius doesn't cheat. But not because of Lucius. He really wants to be able to do it. He does pause quite often, though, to catch his breath and resolve his will. He has to. But he starts again as soon as he is able to. He does not sit down to rest and he doesn't walk one single step.

Four flights of stairs, with the brief rest of three small landings. That's long.

As he gets closer to the top, he needs more and more and longer and longer rests. When he reaches the last of the stairs his legs are trembling so much he can hardly make them obey. But he does do it. He makes it; he jumps all the way up and experiences a faint wave of triumph as he masters the last step.

The triumph doesn't last. When he enters the narrow corridor outside the schoolroom, he suddenly realises how terribly late he is. No one is in the corridor and the door is closed. He stands a little in front of it, breathing, but his weak legs need to get his weight off them. There is nowhere else to go.

Teacher is not pleased. And he's not interested in hearing about Lucius' challenge.

'I always thought it was below you to blame others, Sirius,' he says, 'I am very disappointed in you.'

'I'm not blaming sir, I'm just explaining,' Sirius says.

But Teacher is not impressed.

'Be quiet and go find your seat,' he says. 'There are only 10 minutes left of this lesson. You are 35 minutes late. You will of course make up for that by working during breaks. Which means you will have no breaks before lunch. And I warn you, I will tolerate no more nonsense from you today. Yesterday was quite enough.'

Yesterday Lucius brought a cockroach in a glass jar and showed it to them all during break. Sirius let it loose during class. Not entirely on purpose. But of course he shouldn't have messed with the lid while he was supposed to be doing his arithmetic. Even though Lucius had let Sirius keep the jar under his desk. Leaving his seat to try and catch the cockroach was also stupid; he should have just ignored it. That earned him a slap around the face.

Now Sirius does as he is told and sits down quietly. Teacher tells him to take out his history book and open it on page 235. There is a moving picture of Goblins fighting Wizards on that page. Usually, Sirius likes reading about the Goblin rebellions. But now he can't concentrate.

Only 10 minutes left of class when he arrived with no good explanation. That's bad. And that cockroach disturbance yesterday - now Teacher counts those two things together. That's bad, too. If he doesn't behave now, there's a risk he may get into serious trouble. A very small risk of very bad trouble, his stomach remembers it. Whenever he thinks about it, Sirius starts to have a faint, fluttering feeling in his guts somewhere. He tries not to go there.

Usually, the schoolroom is a safe place to be. Sirius has no problems with learning whatever Teacher wants. The rules are simple and the same every day. Sirius likes Teacher.

But Teacher may lose his temper with him, usually for good reasons. If Teacher decides his misbehaviour is bad enough, Sirius will be sent down to the basement to Father for punishment. The other children will only get notes to take home. But he and Regulus will be handed over to fatherly punishment directly. Except that this hasn't happened to six-year-old Regulus yet.

Sirius tries not to think about it, but look at the fighting Goblins instead. If he is good now, it won't happen. Besides, usually it's OK. Usually Father doesn't hit him at all as hard as Teacher may slap him.

It's hard to have to remain seated at his desk all the way till lunch break, no pauses in between. He's allowed to go to the bathroom once, but not the second time he asks. His increasing restlessness makes it harder and harder for him to remember that he needs to be good.

Once during the second break he forgets and is rude. He tells Teacher how boring he thinks his assignment is. What's the point of drawing a stupid timeline to show the events he has just read about in the history book? Not in a million years will he get that to look neat enough for Teacher. Ask Narcissa to do it.

But he gets away one more time, by looking down and speaking in a low voice, saying he is sorry.

When Teacher finally leaves downstairs for lunch, Sirius is not even willing to eat the sandwiches Nanny brings them sitting down. He sets up the six student chairs in a long row in the schoolroom. When the others complain, he commands them to sit on their desks and eat. If they absolutely must sit.

This doesn't really bother them of course. But they pretend it does. Well, maybe Narcissa doesn't pretend. But she gives in too. Sirius explains the chairs are supposed to be hurdles and he will jump them all.

He passes over the seat of the first chair just fine. Then he crashes into the second because he has placed them far too close to one another. His audience cheers enthusiastically.

Lucius challenges him to try getting over the backs of the chairs, too, not just their seats. But as he is limping around the school room Sirius tells Lucius to try that one himself.

None of the others wants to race him over the chairs. As soon as they have finished their sandwiches, they want to get out of the schoolroom to play. One of the elves will come and clear away the plates; they don't need to worry about that. Sirius joins in their usual lunch hour running around on the second floor.

Soon Andromeda has them all balancing in a long row, with her up front. The point is to walk on only one of the floorboards without stepping outside of it. This is difficult, because the boards are narrow. Regulus soon loses his balance and steps out of the line big time. Then Bellatrix declares he's out of the game.

Regulus protests wildly, no one has said anything about a game and she can't decide. This leads to some heated arguing. Finally they agree Andromeda's suggestion is the fair one, because she started the whole thing. That is, Regulus and Narcissa don't agree. But nobody listens to Regulus and Narcissa.

Andromeda tells them to try balancing from the threshold of the bedroom corridor all the way to its end. The winner will be the one who gets closest to the end wall without stepping outside the board running in the middle of the corridor. They need to go one at a time, so no one can cheat, and have a token to put down at the place where they set their foot down wrong.

Everybody is suddenly very serious about the game. Whenever someone has a try, the others are watching intently. Sirius and Lucius even crawl along on each side of the walkers to check that they do it right.

Regulus gets only a few steps down the corridor. But Narcissa is almost there before she needs to sidestep. Bellatrix does far better than Regulus of course, but she must lay down her token, a quill, a long way behind Narcissa's handkerchief.

Sirius wants to be the last to go, and plans to fight Lucius for it if he has to. But he knows Andromeda is the only one of them who has a fair chance of beating Narcissa and maybe touch the end wall. He smiles encouragingly at her as she stands ready to start.

'Come on, Andromeda, you can do it,' he says.

But Andromeda never gets to try.

'What's that scratching sound?' Bellatrix says.

She is standing next to the door leading into Sirius' and Regulus' bedroom. That's how far down the corridor she made it in her go at the game.

'Hey, Sirius, do you have a rabbit in there?'

'No,' Regulus pipes up, 'It's a squirrel! We found it in the garden yesterday and Sirius took it into the house, Nanny knows but Father wants to kill it!'

Bellatrix is the first one inside their bedroom. The squirrel is having a go on the lid from the inside of the chest, trying to gnaw its way out, and it makes an incredible racket while it's at it.

'How do you think you can keep it hidden in there?' Lucius says, 'your mother is sure to find out, and your father too!'

'I don't,' Sirius answers. 'I'm gonna take it somewhere else when school's over. Nanny won't tell Mother if I do that.'

'Good idea,' Andromeda says. 'It doesn't like it inside that chest, look how desperate it is to get out! Squirrels like to be in trees. Maybe it's hungry too. Why did you bring it inside when you can't keep it, Sirius?'

'Because Father said he wanted to kill it if he saw it in the garden again, and I don't want him to do that. They say it steals eggs from the birds, but I don't mind, because it needs to eat something, and I like eggs too.'

Lucius laughs his soft laugh.

'You're funny,' he says, 'you will be in so much trouble if they find out - bet your parents will think it's a lot worse to have it in their house than in their garden!'

Sirius is willing to bet that too. He is getting annoyed with them all. He remembers the reddish-brown fur of the small squirrel on the grass yesterday, and how warm it was in his hand. It's not funny how they stand around staring at the chest now, how they think the squirrel is just a desperate gnawing, clawing thing in a chest, a prank on his parents.

'I want to see it,' Bellatrix says, and because Sirius is standing too far away from her to stop it, she manages to push the lid open a little.

'NO, don't!' Sirius yells, but too late.

The squirrel is out of the chest and onto the floor immediately, and runs out of the bedroom between all their legs.

It's impossible to catch it. It runs so fast and turns so quickly and is so small it slips through their hands and through the smallest of openings. It climbs walls too, and jumps up everywhere; things are not furniture to it.

Luckily, not too many doors are open on the second floor. Lucius and Andromeda are able to shoo the squirrel away from the main stairs and into the school corridor while the others are yelling and cheering. The door to the schoolroom is open and they all rush in there in pursuit of the squirrel. Bellatrix has at least the sense to shut the door behind them.

It's no easier to catch it in the schoolroom. The squirrel is frantic; it must be so afraid. Sirius does nothing to soothe it when he yells at the others to be quiet and stop scaring it. Andromeda also tries to calm everyone down, not by yelling but by shushing, but nobody pays any attention to her either. Even Narcissa has red cheeks and shouts at whoever is closest to the squirrel: 'No, not there, look out, it's coming towards you, catch it!'

Then Teacher opens the door. Narcissa yells, 'No! It will get away!'- before she realises who it is and clasps her hand over her mouth.

But Teacher doesn't tell her off for yelling at him. When he sees the squirrel he takes out his wand and sends a sudden, thin red beam directly at it. It freezes in midair and falls down with a soft thud on the desk it was running over.

Everyone is suddenly silent. Except Sirius.

'You killed it!' he yells at Teacher, 'You killed it, I hate you!'

And he wants to run to the desk where the squirrel is lying. But Teacher holds him back by his upper arm.

'Be quiet Sirius,' he says in a calm, but not friendly voice, 'It's not dead. Stunning spells don't kill. Everybody, please put the chairs back where they belong and sit down, as you should have been doing already. The break is over.'

The other children silently do as they're told. They know they are supposed to be waiting by their desks, ready for work, when Teacher arrives after lunch. They cast short glances at Sirius who is just standing there breathing while Teacher holds his arm.

When everyone is quietly seated, Narcissa with a look of disgust on her face at the stunned squirrel lying on her desktop, Teacher turns to Sirius.

'So, this is your squirrel,' he says.

Sirius doesn't know what to say. He realises this is disaster, but his emotions are running so high he can barely think.

'And just why did you think you could bring it in here?' Teacher continues.

Sirius glares at him, still unable to find any words.

'Yesterday there was a cockroach, today there's a squirrel - this is a schoolroom, not a zoo. You are old enough to understand why you can't bring animals in here, so I will have to assume you did this to deliberately disturb lessons, unless you have a better explanation to give me.'

He shakes Sirius a little by his arm, which agitates Sirius even more - he hates being pushed around.

'I want an explanation, Sirius,' Teacher demands. 'First you seem to think you can show up to my classes whenever you choose, and now you seem to think you can engage yourself in whatever activity you want in here, too, regardless of my rules, once you have arrived. What do you mean by this?'

'I don't mean anything,' Sirius finally says, almost not yelling. 'It got out of the chest I kept it in, because - somebody - opened the lid. We were trying to catch it! It ran in here all by itself, you try and catch a squirrel yourself and see how easy it is!'

'Don't you yell at me,' Teacher sternly says. 'And don't give me any cheek, I won't take it. Are you telling me you have been allowed to keep a squirrel in the house? In a chest - hardly a place for a little tree climbing rodent like this! Who gave you the permission to have it?'

'Nanny said I could have it if I took it out of the house today,' Sirius mumbles.

He knows the moment he says the words that this won't do. Nanny has no authority.

Teacher merely looks at him, then lets go of his arm and approaches Narcissa's desk. She backs away a little. With a short flick of his wand in the air, Teacher conjures up a small cage with a handle on top and a small door standing open on one of its sides. He carefully lifts up the squirrel and gently lays it to rest on the cage floor. After he has shut the door with an audible click, he makes the squirrel come alive with a small tap of his wand on top of the cage. The squirrel immediately starts trying to get out by gnawing on the metal net making up the sides of the cage.

Teacher lifts the cage with both his hands and turns to Sirius, holding the cage out towards him.

'You take this down to your father,' he says. 'He will decide what is to be done with it. Come on, take the handle. As you can see, there's nothing the matter with the squirrel. You just carry it carefully.'

Sirius takes the handle. What else can he do. He supports the bottom of the cage with his other hand and holds it up to look at the squirrel, now standing on its hind legs while leaning on the metal net with its front paws, trying to gnaw at a higher place.

'It needs water,' Sirius says in a thick voice.

Teacher and Sirius stand a little while, looking at each other. Then Teacher gives the cage another tap with his wand, and a small basin with water in it appears attached to the inside of one of the sides of the cage. The squirrel stops its gnawing and stands a little with its nose quivering. Then it lets itself down on all fours and begins to lap up the water, splashing a lot of it on the cage floor.

'You need to learn to think before you act, Sirius,' Teacher finally says, his voice a little friendlier than before. 'And respect both this schoolroom and the rest of this house a little better, too. It's not for you to decide what is to be taken into this place. You have done this squirrel no favour by taking it into a house where it doesn't belong and will only upset everything and everybody. I certainly wouldn't have allowed my son to have it in my house. But in this house it comes under your father's authority to decide what is to be done with it, and with you for bringing it in here. So you go downstairs to him, now.'

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Next chapter: **The Basement**. How can Sirius save the squirrel now? And what will Father do to him?

Will be uploaded in the next couple of days. And if you have read this far: **Please, please review!**


	5. The Basement

_Disclaimer_: Characters and universe still belongs to J.K. Rowling, not me.

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**The Basement**

Sirius walks slowly down the front stairs, carrying the cage with the wildly scratching squirrel. Everything has gone wrong. He wanted to save the squirrel and now he is supposed to take it down to Father who said he would kill it if he saw it again.

Why couldn't stupid Nanny have brought it out of the house herself this morning? She has much better opportunities than he does. She is not a prisoner in this house; she does sometimes leave to visit her family. But Nanny is just too afraid of Mother.

Sirius walks slower and slower. A few steps above the first floor landing he finally comes to a halt. He can't bring the squirrel to Father.

But he doesn't have to. Does he? He's already in trouble. He might as well save the squirrel first and _then_ go to Father and take his punishment, whatever that may be. If the squirrel is gone it's gone. Then nobody can do anything to it anyway. No matter how angry they get.

If everything had been as he thought it would be, as it should have been, the squirrel would have stayed safely in the chest by his bed till he was out of school. Then he would have picked a safe time when he knew the whereabouts of both his parents, and got the squirrel out through the floo network.

You can go anywhere you want by the floo. All you need to do is throw a little floo powder in a fireplace and tell the green flames where you want to go. Sirius knows there is a jar filled with floo powder on the mantelpiece in mother's drawing room.

Her drawing room is off the first floor landing. Sirius is standing only a few steps away from its door. What if he peeps in around that door on his way down? He might be lucky and find the room empty. Then he could get the squirrel out through the fireplace right away.

But Mother might be sitting in the drawing room this very minute. If she sees him with the squirrel it will be killed on the spot. Mother will have no patience.

No good.

There is another problem with the drawing room. Portraits of the Black family ancestors are hanging on its walls. He forgot all about them yesterday. But he remembers now.

The portraits of the ancestors are not very happy with him. Sometimes when he has fidgeted too much in front of guests, they have joined in on Mother's reprimands. Miss Adhara is the worst of the lot. She is the lady in a crinoline who usually sits on a painted version of one of the drawing room chairs. She speaks of Sirius as a great disappointment who shows no respect for his blood and is unwilling to represent the House of Black in a decent fashion for even five minutes. Even though he _is_ its heir! Sirius loathes her.

The other portraits don't seem to be very interested in what he does as long as he is not embarrassing the House of Black in front of guests. But Miss Adhara will always tell on him.

He once wanted to buy ice cream for the money he was given by his favourite uncle. He snuck into the drawing room when mother was elsewhere, and nicked some powder from the mantelpiece jar. He meant to go to the ice cream parlour in Diagon Alley. His uncle had brought him there before.

Miss Adhara said nothing to him. Instead she left her frame and moved through the many paintings of the house till she found Mother and told on him. He still remembers that punishment.

Miss Adhara doesn't show up very often in the paintings hanging elsewhere in the house. Sirius has been quite happy about that. But now he realises it's a problem. He doesn't know of any other floo powder jars in the house than the one in mother's drawing room.

To get the squirrel out through the floo network, Sirius must wait until both mother and Miss Adhara is away from the drawing room. It has happened. Miss Adhara _does_ sometimes make an evening visit to a portrait some other place in the house. Twice Sirius has gone on his own to the fireplace in Lucius' nursery room. Once he even went to the fireplace in the Leaky Cauldron pub. Each time he was away for only a few minutes, because he was afraid Mother would enter the drawing room while he was gone. But he was not found out. It can be done.

But it may take days before Mother and Miss Adhara is out of the drawing room at the same time. Weeks. He can't hide the squirrel in the house for that long. It would be found. It's not a good plan.

Lucius. Lucius has got floo powder. He uses it to travel to and from school every day. If he lets Lucius in on the plan he may let Sirius have some of his powder.

Lucius will think it's fun. He will not tell. Then Sirius doesn't have to risk mother's drawing room. He may instead pick any other empty room in the house, with fewer portraits and a fireplace.

Go to the fireplace in Lucius' nursery. He doesn't have a Nanny to worry about and there's a huge park outside where Lucius lives. The squirrel will be fine there.

They can work out all the details later. After his punishment, before Lucius goes home. Only now he must hide the squirrel some other place than his bedroom. Both Regulus and Nanny knows about that and may be made to tell. Upstairs, where Mother doesn't come often. The attic, she never goes there.

The moment he has a plan, Sirius feels strong again. He acts on his plan immediately. Once he is up in the dim, dusty attic, he feels a little safer. He looks up at one of the skylights - what about letting the squirrel out that way?

He hasn't thought about the windows of the house. They are never opened because of the Muggles outside. There are some very strong protective spells on them. The whole house has protective spells on it, a long list. No Muggle will ever be able to break into their home. Father has told them so many times.

The skylights of the attic probably have spells on them as well. And what would the squirrel do out there alone on the roof? It's far too high up above the ground. It will be safer and much, much better for it in the vast park around the Malfoy mansion.

Sirius puts the cage down in a dark corner, behind a heavy chest filled with old books. He stands a while looking down at the little squirrel. It is still trying to gnaw its way out of the cage.

'Bye - I'll be back soon,' he says to it inside his head.

Because somehow he can't make himself say it out aloud.

This time he walks fairly quickly down the stairs. Teacher is sure to tell about the squirrel. But probably not until tomorrow, when he has lunch with Mother and Father. Then the squirrel will be safely out of the house anyway, and it won't matter what Teacher says. Except perhaps that Sirius may be punished one more time for lying or not telling. Probably by mother this time.

But between the first and the ground floors Sirius again slows down. What will he tell Father? The squirrel was the reason he was sent down for punisment in the first place. He must think of something else that Father will find likely so he won't ask too many questions. Because then Sirius may get himself tangled up in confused and unlikely answers and Father will find out.

He will tell Father about the cockroach yesterday. And being late this morning. Being rude about the timeline and answering back when Teacher told them off for running around in the school room after lunch break. All this will be true. Also very likely reasons for being sent to Father for punishment. No reasons for Father to ask any questions.

It will be OK; it's a good plan. It is. Usually Father is nothing but reasonable. He will listen Sirius out. As a rule his spankings are more embarrassing and uncomfortable than actually painful. If Sirius is lucky he may even get away with just a little speech about the importance of hard work and discipline, and the kind of conduct expected of the heir of the House of Black. It has happened.

Sirius crosses the ground floor hall and starts on the narrow stairs leading down into the basement. His legs weaken. A cold and slightly damp smell comes up to meet him from the stone floored rooms. His stomach feels like it's floating somewhere not connected to the rest of his body.

He doesn't want this. It may be bad. Even though Father is usually in as level a mood as Sirius could ever want it, he sometimes is not. Sirius won't know till he sees him. Each time he gets as close as this to Father's rooms, expecting a punishment, memories of those other times come back.

He really doesn't want this.

The moment Sirius opens the door into the narrow corridor outside Father's basement rooms, he knows he's in danger. It's one of those days. Those very few days. The door of the dangerous room between the room with the caskets and the room with the cages is open.

Sirius hears sounds coming from that room, as of huge animals moving. Elephant sounds, and squeaking, wailing, growling, howling sounds. Smoke of a strange unfamiliar colour billows out of the room, and he sees a flickering light, as if a silent green fire is burning in there.

His Father and the assistant are inside, shouting at each other in very high-pitched voices. It sounds as if they are quarrelling and as if they are scared. Sirius doesn't understand what they are saying. His brain is very close to panic.

He doesn't want to be here. He wants to turn around. Go away. But Mother or Teacher will only send him back. The house elves or the portraits will tell on him. Only Nanny will want to shield him. But she can't.

Maybe, maybe it will still be OK. It has happened. It has. Even when calling him out of the danger room, Sirius has sometimes been able to get away with nothing worse from Father than a bit of yelling and swearing. Because he was very, very careful to not look Father in the eye so he didn't seem cheeky. Not look down on his own feet so he didn't seem creeping. And agree to everything. And be very, very polite.

Sirius supports himself with one hand against the wall. He feels really weak now, and sick. He shivers from what feels like real cold. He will just wait here, silently, till the experiment is over. Then Father will come out of the room, happy because the experiment went well. And then he will be his usual, reasonable self.

It's not happening. They are not quarrelling in there anymore. They are shouting spells and warnings in scary, shrill voices. Then Father comes out of the room, shouting over his shoulder.

'Wait! Don't do anything, I will get –'

But then he sees Sirius in the corridor. The moment their eyes meet, Father starts to roar.

'_What_ are _you_ doing down here now!'

'Teacher,' Sirius begins in a small voice.

But he gives up. Father is pale and looks wild. His hair is on end. His robes are stained all down the front with strange, oil-like looking, rainbow-coloured spots, and greenish goo, and some darker, brownish spots that look like blood. His face is closed. Even though he yells at him and is so mad with him, he seems to not really see Sirius at all.

Before, when Father has looked like this, Sirius has tried to plead and ask to be forgiven and promise to be good. But it has never helped. Now he is grabbed and dragged into the study and thrown down on the floor and kicked a couple of times, hard. He curls up around himself by pure instinct. Then he is lifted up by his hair and thrown against the wall.

Father yells at him. Sirius is ruining his important experiments on purpose! He will not hear anything about the stupid things Sirius has done! It must be something horrible anyway when his very good and much too kind teacher has found it necessary to send him down here! And then he starts on how Sirius is a total disgrace to the name of Black and a grief to his parents.

Sirius doesn't really listen. There is nothing he can say or do now that will change anything anyway. Understanding the yelling is not important. And then there is a stick in Father's hand.

Sirius immediately crouches and throws up his arms to protect his head and face. He wants to turn away, but is grabbed and held. And now there really is nothing else he can do to protect himself but to try and shut it all out.

Shut his eyes, shut his ears, not to move, not to think, not to feel. At one point he is dragged across the study and held down against the wooden table and beaten with something that hurts very much. Then he no longer knows what is happening to him.

Sirius is faintly aware of Annyma, the female house-elf. Her smell is very distinct, not uncomfortable, but different. She is lifting him up from the floor; she is a lot stronger than she seems from her small size and trembling hands, and those hands are very sure of what they are doing. There is a loud crack and then they are in his bedroom. Annyma lies him gently down in his bed, on his front, before she disapparates with another loud crack.

Sirius hangs his head outside his bed to vomit on the carpet. His head is swimming and hurts very much. There is blood in his bed and all his body smarts and aches. Then Nanny arrives with Regulus tagging along. School must be over then. Or it's a break.

Nanny is terribly inefficient. She wails and cries and tries clumsily to put a cold, unctuous, smelly cream on him that doesn't help one tiny bit on any of the things that is the matter with him. Sirius tries to fend her off, and yell at her, at least hate her, but he's too weak. Regulus makes it worse, too, with his tearful eyes and trembling lip and whimpering voice.

'You mustn't yell at Teacher,' he says, 'please, please, please Sirius, you mustn't!'

'Shuddup,' Sirius mumbles, 'shuddup. Gerroff me.'

Finally, Nanny does the right thing and gets Mother. She comes into the room and immediately gets out her wand and a bottle of potion that is a smarting, stinging shock in his wounds. Her spells and no-nonsense hands work their way down all his body whether he wants them to or not. She adds a few minor slaps and telling-offs into her healing, but she is very efficient.

Sirius stops aching and starts to feel irritated and annoyed at this ill-treatment instead. Soon he can sit up. His wounds are closed and his swellings down; his head is not swimming any more. But he feels strange and stiff, as if his body is still not quite his.

'Nanny, go fill the bathtub,' Mother says.

She sits next to Sirius and holds him firmly around his shoulders as if to help him sit up. Sirius doesn't mind.

'Bend your arms,' she commands.

Sirius proves to her he can do that. Also his hands, and feet, and he can stretch both his legs straight out in front of him. Mother's strong warm hand runs through his hair and holds it a second, but she doesn't pull. She gives him a short hug with her other arm.

'Why do you have to misbehave like this, Sirius,' she says, less angry now. 'It's all so unnecessary - and such a burden on your Father - he really is working so hard these days, and with such dangerous and important things, to protect us all. It really is too much for him when he must be bothered with your need for discipline on top of that, all your childish little wars with Teacher - they are so unimportant Sirius! If only I could make you understand...'

In the bath the hot water melts his stiff muscles. And it is Mother who helps him into his warm and soft pajamas afterwards and follows him to his bed, where the sheets are now fresh and clean.

'Go to sleep now,' she says, almost kindly. 'Nanny will wake you up before dinner, then you'll be fine, I promise.'

When Nanny does wake him up in time to dinner, in a too careful, sickbed sort of voice which annoys him terribly, he realises Mother is right. As she always is. He is fine. A little stiff only, but that is maybe because of all the jumping up the stairs he did this morning.

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_Next Chapter_: **The Experiment**  
After his punishment, Sirius is accepted at the dinner table as if nothing has happened, and gets to overhear some of his parents' adult talk. Has he forgotten all about the squirrel now?

Will be updated soon. **Please review**


	6. The Experiment

Disclaimer: Yeah, you know. Still Rowling's, the character and universe...

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**The Experiment**

Sirius enters the dining room and sees Father seated at the table. He stops inside the door, feeling tense. Usually he has no reason to be afraid of Father outside the basement. Father never mentions what may sometimes happen down there. But now Sirius needs something from Father to be able to relax and forget. A nod, a smile, a level random comment … Also, dinner with his parents is a new experience. He doesn't know what to expect or how to behave.

He is surprised to see Father's assistant in the dining room. Mother makes faces behind the assistant's back to make Sirius stop staring and be polite. To please her, Sirius reaches out his hand. The assistant takes it with a surprised look on his face and Sirius bows deeply. Just as Mother has taught him to do when she introduces him to new guests in her drawing room.

But instead of being pleased with him, Mother lightly slaps him at the back of his head.

"Don't be ridiculous Sirius," she says, with a hint of impatience in her voice. "Your father's assistant eats with us whenever he needs to stay late because of the experiments. I told you they are important these days. He's not a guest, he's an employee. Now sit down and eat quietly."

Sirius sits down, a little hot in the cheeks, and watches his mother. He understands he knows nothing about the rules governing this situation. Mother is the best one to watch for rules.

She sits down and ladles soup into first his and then her own bowl. She hands Sirius his soup, then starts eating without paying any more attention to him.

Sirius decides he is probably safe if he eats without spilling, makes no unnecessary sounds and remembers the thing with his elbows from breakfast. After a few safe minutes, he chances a careful sideways glance at his father.

Father doesn't seem angry or annoyed. Not with Sirius, nor with anyone else. His face is relaxed and pleasant. His hands calmly move the silver spoon to eat his soup, and the silver knife to butter his piece of roll. They don't look like hands that may wield a stick to hurt him.

Next time Sirius chances a look at Father, he is leaning comfortably back on his chair. He eats his buttered piece of roll and looks with a small, half-conscious smile at something behind Sirius' back.

Sirius carefully turns to look. It's a painting of a young couple in strange clothes, dancing in a garden in the moonlight. The half visible fountain in the front left of the painting looks very familiar. Sirius guesses this is a painting of their own Magical garden. He turns back to ask about it, but something in Mother's posture makes him think she maybe won't like it if he does. She doesn't look at him. But he is sure she noticed how he turned around.

She eats in silence, with small, careful movements. Sometimes she fingers a little with the roll on the small plate next to her soup bowl. But she does not eat it. Maybe she is cross with Sirius for fidgeting. Maybe she doesn't like that the assistant is here, and is cross with Sirius for greeting the man as a guest. But how was he to know that was wrong?

The assistant says nothing. He seems completely absorbed in his soup.

Mother rings her little silver bell. Kreacher comes to take their soup bowls away and bring them plates with lamb chops, vegetables and mash instead. While the table is cleared in front of him, the assistant leans back, sucks his teeth, puts one hand in his pocket and the other on the table, looks a little sideways at Father, then draws his breath a little too loud a couple of times before he finally speaks his mind.

"Well? How about it then?" he says. "I could do it now, you know, because I really don't think there's any point in continuing if we don't have a real Muggle object to try it on..."

Father sighs, but doesn't look up. The assistant leans abruptly forward, just as Kreacher is about to put down a plate of lamb chop in front of him.

"You know," he says. "We must have one which has been in recent use. In fact, it ought to be in use the moment I take it. I really think –"

" Yes, yes!" Father says, sitting up, too. "We've been over this before. There is no need to repeat all of that now, and bore everybody at the dinner table. Let's eat and talk of pleasanter things. The boy is here too, you know. I really don't want to discuss these sordid Muggle affairs in front of my son. He's still too young for that."

_I'm NOT_, Sirius automatically thinks. But he doesn't say it out aloud.

"You go out after dinner and see if you can get what we need. I will take a short trip to the Malfoys in the mean time. Mrs. Malfoy is known to be very knowledgeable when it comes to anti-Muggle Magic, maybe she –"

"But!" the assistant interrupts. "This is really something quite unorthodox you know, and rather - well - unusual - and I don't think -"

Father holds up a hand.

"Don't but me in front of my son, young man. I know perfectly well who I can talk to about what, thank you. Have no fear, it will all be safe. I assure you, Mrs. Malfoy is a very broadminded woman."

After this, nobody speaks. Sirius begins to feel restless, but manages to behave himself. He doesn't spill any sauce or peas on the tablecloth. He keeps his elbows off the table and doesn't bother Mother by kicking absentmindedly at the legs of his chair. Mother doesn't tell him off for anything.

Perhaps her thin mouth and overly controlled movements are not because of him. Perhaps they are because of this Muggle affair, whatever that may be. Is she annoyed because they talk about it here at the table? Or is she annoyed because they _don't_ talk about it and keep her out of it?

Or maybe she is mad at them because they do whatever they do with Muggles. Mother hates and loathes anything to do with Muggles. Sirius knows that.

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**Please Review!**

Next chapter: **The Vanishing House**  
Sirius finally manages to get the squirrel out. But he is not prepared for what meets him outside.

To be updated soon.


	7. The Vanishing House

_Disclaimer_: Still Rowling's, not mine.

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**The Vanishing House**

After dinner the assistant disappears into the basement. Mother follows Sirius into the hall and runs her fingers through his hair. Then she turns him around to face her.

"Yes, she says, looking him over. "Yes, I think I can do this. I think I know the look. My sons shall not appear ridiculously childish or ridiculously pretentious in the eyes of any Witch or Wizard."

Sirius wriggles a little in her hands. He hates it when she wants to try for new clothes on him. Endless standing to be measured, and turned around, and pinched, and jerked by the upper arm and asked to stand still.

"You are not going to try anything on me now, are you?" he says.

She smiles and leans down to kiss his hair.

"Not today," she says. "That's too soon. But I shall look through my albums in the drawing room, to see if I can get some inspiration. Trust your mama, she will make you look so good, so handsome..."

Her face goes all soft and her eyes almost wet. Sirius takes one step away from her, afraid she will take him upstairs right now to be part of the inspiration. But she just laughs and ruffles his hair.

"Big boy are we," she says. "Doesn't like being kissed by our Mother? That's OK then - you go find your brother and see if he has survived alone with Nanny. But behave yourselves now, mind - I really have no time to suffer Nanny's complaints tonight. You hear?"

But she is not really cross with him. She smiles at him.

Father enters the hall and kisses Mother briefly with his eyes at the basement door.

"I will be off in a minute then," he says. "I just need to collect a few things to show Mrs. Malfoy. I expect I will be back within an hour and a half at the most. I do hope we shall be able to take this damn business one step further tonight. Let's hope this eager assistant of mine will be successful out there."

Sirius hangs back in the hall after his parents have left. He is still strangely restless, but doesn't know what to do with the feeling.

The squirrel. He has forgotten the squirrel. How can he have forgotten the squirrel? The little friend is still up there in the attic, alone in its metal cage without food, or water, or space, with just a faint light from the skylights reaching into its dark corner.

Sirius never told Father how the squirrel was the reason he was sent to the basement to be punished. Nobody but him knows the squirrel is still in the house. But now Mother will probably be in the drawing room till bedtime. No chance of getting to that jar of floopowder on her mantelpiece. And Sirius never got to plan anything with Lucius.

Suddenly the assistant enters the hall through the basement door. Sirius startles. As if the man is an intruder, an enemy. He has a coat on and Sirius watches as he walks the length of the hall and opens one of the double front doors.

It lasts for a short moment only. The hall is suddenly filled with the cool, almost boring light of day. The gas lamps on the walls turn a pale, dull yellow. The body of the assistant blocks the doorway and Sirius sees nothing behind him but the light.

Then the door closes. The assistant has gone to take the necessary something from the Muggles. The hall is again filled with the yellowish glow from the gas lamps of the House of Black.

But Sirius still stands staring at the doors. He has never before been interested in the front doors of his house. Because they only lead to the Muggle streets of London and there you will only find the Muggles. And Muggles are boring and stupid. Perhaps even dangerous, because they hate Wizards.

His parents do sometimes leave that way and a few guests may enter. But this has nothing to do with Sirius and he has barely noticed. It's the fireplaces of his house that are tempting. They are the gates to the outside world: Other houses, other places, other Wizards.

But the squirrel must have come from exactly that Muggle outside Father works so hard to protect them against. It must have climbed the outside walls of their house somehow, scampered across the roof right through Father's protective spells and climbed down the ivy into their garden. If Sirius had let he squirrel out on the roof before, it probably _would_ have been able to find the way down on its own.

He should have thought of this. How stupid he has been. He doesn't need a complicated plan. All he needs to do is get the squirrel out through the doors or the windows of the house. Then it can get back to the Muggle trees it came from on its own. It's that easy.

Sirius stands strangely still for yet a little while, looking at the doors, feeling the beating of his heart. Then he moves silently across the floor and up the stairs into the attic.

No sound comes from behind the book chest. The little squirrel lies curled up in a corner of its cage. As if it is dead already. Sirius beats down his impulse to grab the cage, tear open the door, take the squirrel out and somehow _will_ it alive.

It's not dead; it can't be dead. And it's a very bad idea to open the cage door to check on it. Sirius can't risk a terrible chase around the attic to get hold of it again. They will hear it downstairs and then everything will be lost.

Sirius knows he doesn't have the power to draw the squirrel back to him the way he did yesterday in the garden. Lucius and Bellatrix are not here trying to beat him to it; Narcissa and Regulus are not here cheering them on. But Sirius is not the same as he was yesterday.

His heart is beating too hard. His lungs feel much too narrow.

The squirrel is not dead. As soon as he lifts the cage from the floor to have a closer look, it's up and frantically trying to gnaw itself free.

Sirius suddenly feels weak. There's a rush of warmth inside, from his stomach up into his eyes. Like he is about to cry. But he's not; there are no tears. Instead he has a broad and shaky smile on his face. He puts the cage gently back down on the floor.

The skylights are set too high for him to reach. Sirius pushes a rickety old table under one of them, and then he is able to just reach it. But he can't open the window. He pushes it and beats hard on it, but the window remains shut.

But as he climbs off the table, Sirius realises it doesn't matter. The roof is not a good plan anyway. Once it's out there on its own, what will stop the little squirrel from climbing down into the garden again? And get itself killed tomorrow when Father finds it?

The best way out is through the front doors. The windows are probably all kept shut by Father's protective spells. But the assistant didn't need any spells to open the doors. The Anti-Muggle-Magic that must be on them doesn't seem to lock them from the inside.

Sirius lifts the cage and carries it out of the attic and down the main stairs. He tries to walk silently, but that feels kind of silly - the squirrel is not at all quiet in its desperate attempts to break out of the cage.

Neither Father nor the assistant will be back from their errands yet. They are no threat. The danger is outside Mother's drawing room door. Sirius hurries by, afraid she will open it and yell after him, maybe even hit him with an angry spell in the back.

But her door doesn't open. He is still safe when he reaches the entrance hall.

Sirius has no clear idea of how the Muggle outside will look, except for a vague image of some trees. But when he opens one of the double front doors, he is still surprised.

There is a sunset in the sky and the light is yellowish and strange. As if the ground itself is glowing. His house, The very Ancient and Noble House of Black, doesn't stand alone. It is part of a row of houses enclosing an open square with a patch of unkempt grass in the middle. Sirius stands looking down a flight of four stone steps ending in a ground covered by worn and unevenly laid cobblestones. Yellow leaves of grass grow out from between the stones. Litter lie all over the square. Paper, tin cans, a little heap of broken bricks and splintered wood near the basement wall of the nearest house to his left.

The houses around the square are too plain to be neighbouring his own richly decorated home. Their walls are made of sooted bricks or greyish concrete. Many of their windows seem dirty and blind, as if no one lives behind them. A window in the first floor of the nearest house is open, and an ugly, mustard-coloured curtain is hanging out, billowing a little from the draught. Loud and ugly music is playing inside.

Sirius has heard his whole life that Muggles are boring, uninteresting, stupid. That must be why they want to live in such dull, grimy, ugly houses. From what he can see of his own Wizarding house, it seems very different. Its red bricks are shining, almost glossy, and there are some black coloured bricks in between them, as if to make patterns.

Do the Muggles _know_ how different this particular house in the row is? Do they know it is inhabited by Wizards?

The squirrel scratches the insides of its cage. But there are no trees to be seen anywhere. They must be farther away - perhaps at the back of the houses?

Sirius casts a quick glance behind him. But the entrance hall is still empty and silent.

He walks down the first two steps and turns to close the door. But there is no handle, no doorknob, no keyhole to bee seen. Just the shining black door pane with a silvery door hammer in its middle, formed like a serpent lifting its head. If he closes the door he will have to knock to be let back in.

No one has ever told him it's forbidden to go out through this door. But Sirius sees a fleeting image in his head of his mother's furrowed brow and angry black eyes. Mother loathes Muggles; he knows that. She won't want her first born son walking along their ugly houses, hearing their ugly music, trying to find some trees for a Muggle squirrel.

Sirius holds the serpent head and carefully pushes the heavy door almost to. But he does not dare to let go. What if the door snaps back into locked position while he is away to find the trees? He needs a wedge of some sorts. The pieces of splintered wood on the pile of rubbish to his left. One of those.

He draws a deep breath. The door is resting its lock tongue on the side of the doorway. Sirius holds his breath and carefully lets go of the serpent head. The door does not move. Sirius exhales and bravely turns to walk away from his house.

The pieces of wood on the rubbish pile are too old and dry. They splinter when he tries their strength on the ground. But one of the bigger pieces of broken brick will serve just fine as a door stopper.

Sirius picks a piece of brick, stands up and turns to walk back to the door. But then he freezes, piece of brick in one hand and cage with squirrel in the other.

His house, The very Ancient and Noble House of Black, with its shining black and serpented door, is gone.

The grey concrete house with the mustard coloured curtain and the music playing is now standing right next to another grey house, made of old and crumbling bricks. No house made of shining red and black bricks with four stone steps leading up to its black door stands between them. Nothing stands between them. The two Muggle houses lean on each other, forming one wall with no opening in it anywhere.

Sirius is the Magical son of a Witch and a Wizard. He has seen again and again how objects can be made to disappear through Magic. But then somebody must use a wand and say a spell. Who would want his whole house to disappear?

Is he found out, seen stealing through the front doors? Is Mother so outraged by his visit to the Muggle world that she has Magicked herself and the house away from him, and left him here to live alone among the Muggles?

The brick slides out of Sirius' hand and falls to the ground. But he doesn't notice. A man comes out through the green door in the house on the left. He sees Sirius as he moves across the place towards the street at the far end, and gives him a nod and a slight smile.

He's a Muggle. He must be. He looks old, like 50 or something. His face is wrinkled and his black, neatly combed hair is thin, his scalp shows through it. His clothes are not exactly strange - grey trousers, a white shirt and a short, brown suede jacket. Wizards too may wear trousers, or a shirt or a jacket sometimes. But these seem so dull, so plain, no colour, no flair, no decoration. Just like the houses.

Sirius doesn't smile back at the Muggle. He stares. The Muggle is not tall and doesn't look dangerous or mean. But Sirius doesn't know what to do or say around a Muggle now that his house has disappeared and he can never get back inside.

The Muggle stops a few steps away from him.

"Are you lost, sonny?" he says. His voice is a little flat, but not unfriendly. "Can't find your way back home?"

This is only too true, but not in any way this Muggle would understand. Sirius has never before met a Muggle, but he knows he can't say to this one that he is a Wizard and his house has just been Magicked away.

How is it possible that the Muggle seems to not _know_ that the house next to his own has disappeared? He hasn't yet turned to look behind him. But still. Didn't he notice how his house moved just now while he was inside it, to take the place of the one next door?

But this Muggle seems completely clueless, not upset or wondering or anything. He really must be as stupid as they say Muggles are, and he will think Sirius is mad if he starts to babble about parents Magicking houses away from their sons.

Besides, it's illegal to tell Muggles anything about Wizards. Sirius knows that much. You can be placed in Azkaban prison for that

The sudden outbreak of new noises from the squirrel in the cage draws the Muggle's attention away from Sirius' frozen stare.

"What have you got there, kid?" he says.

His voice still sounds friendly and interested, in an ordinary sort of way. Like nothing is the matter and Sirius is just another, likable kid.

"A squirrel," Sirius hears himself say. He continues without thinking: "Mother doesn't want any animals in our house."

This time the Muggle's smile is broader and more personal; he gets a lot of friendly wrinkles round his eyes.

"No," he says. "That's the thing with mothers. What are you going to do with it?"

"I came out to find some trees where it could live," Sirius says.

"Do you live here?" The Muggle nods his head in the direction of the two houses now filling the space where Sirius' house should have been.

"No," Sirius truthfully answers, and stops himself just in time from saying: not anymore.

"There's a small garden to the left up the street here," the Muggle says, pointing to the right behind Sirius. "Couple of trees and some grass, and a weedy flowerbed or two. Never mind mums, but squirrels don't like houses. They like it best under the open skies. You could try and let it out there. Nothing big or pretty that spot of green, but squirrels aren't so particular, are they. It will be dark soon, you don't want to wander too far on your own this time of day. Best get back home soon as you can, so Mum won't get too worried. Sure you know where you are?"

Sirius looks up into this friendly man's face and solemnly nods. He knows where he is. It's the house that is lost.

The man smiles again. He touches his forehead with two of his right hand fingers, where the brim of his hat would have been if he had worn one.

"Take care now, he says. "Up the street there, it's not far, and then hurry home. Your squirrel will be fine on its own. Don't worry about it."

And with this he turns and walks away, in the opposite direction from where he advised Sirius to go.

Sirius watches as the man crosses the open square and enters the street at the far end. Watches him until he is lost in the shadows among the houses in that narrowing street. Now Sirius is all alone.

The sunset is still in the sky, but the colours have deepened. The man is right, it will be dark soon. Sirius cradles the squirrel cage in both his arms and walks along the all-Muggle houses, to turn into the street the man pointed out for him.

The man is right about the distance, too. The little fenced in green spot he was talking about is just the length of a few houses down the street. The fence is not too high, either. And there are at least five or six trees behind it, a bench near some bushes and some roses growing.

Sirius stands on his toes near the fence. Stretching both his arms to their full length, he is just able to rest the cage on top of the pickets and open the door for the squirrel. He must lean against the pickets not to fall over, and the squirrel scratches his hands as it scrambles out of the cage. But it gets free.

Sirius watches it scamper across the grass at the other side of the fence. The squirrel disappears in the shadows of the Muggle bushes, just like the man disappeared in the shadows of the Muggle houses, and Sirius is alone in a Muggle street as the daylight fades. No one walks the street and the houses around him seem dark and closed, with light in only a few of their windows.

Sirius walks slowly back to where he came from, leaving the cage by the fence. He doesn't know what else to do.

As he is about to enter the square where his house ought to be, lamps fastened at the walls of the houses, or hung from wires crossing the street high up in the air above him, suddenly springs into light. Sirius jumps and stops to stare at the lamps. He looks all around him to see who performed the Magic. But there is no one to be seen.

The lamplight makes the evening seem darker than before. But it still feels like help. It will not turn totally dark out here once the sun is down.

Soon Sirius is again standing in front of what should have been the door to his home. Now it is just a change in wall dressing which shows where the outer wall of one house ends and that of another begins. He doesn't know what to do.

There is no point in trying to find the back of the houses. If his house is gone it is gone seen from the back as well. What will Muggles do with homeless Wizard boys?

If he waits, his house will maybe come back. Maybe it's just a punishment. Maybe Mother doesn't want to leave him forever, only scare him so he will never go out through the front doors again.

Sirius waits. He waits. But nothing happens. Darkness proper falls. The street lamps are few, with only faint spots of light thrown in narrow circles around them. He hears some muffled sounds of Muggles inside the houses in front of him, voices, laughter, music. But most of the windows are dark, with no one behind them.

He waits, closer and closer to despair. When somebody turns the ugly Muggle music up very high in one of the Muggle houses, he suddenly takes one bold step forward and shouts at the forbidding strange walls in front of him:

"I am Sirius Black, the heir of the house of Black, and my house belongs here, not yours, go away!"

Then he stares as the shining, red bricked wall of his own house slowly and solemnly grows out of the border line between the two Muggle houses. Gently and dignified, pushing its neighbouring houses to the sides, the Noble House of Black grows until it reaches its own impressive size. Torches blaze in iron brackets at each side of its black door. The serpent in its centre seem to come alive in their flickering light.

Sirius shivers, his stomach turned fluid, his lips trembling. He runs forward, up the four stone steps to grab hold of the serpent's head.

It is solid, cold and hard, no illusion. The door still stands ajar, just as he left it. Sirius pauses, holding the serpent to stop the door from slamming into locked position against him.

Is he right about the punishment part? Is Mother waiting behind the door, to pounce the moment he crosses the threshold?

He waits, and listens, but no sound comes from inside the house. Sirius slowly pulls the door open, waits a few seconds more, then quickly steps inside and pulls the door shut behind him.

The hall is empty; the lamps are burning on the walls as they did when he left. No one is waiting for him.

Actually, he has not been away for very long. Maybe an hour? Maybe only half an hour? Sirius looks up the stairwell. No one is standing on the steps, no sound comes down to him.

But then the drawing room door opens. Mother comes out onto the first floor landing. Sirius knows it's her; he knows the sound of that door. He knows the sound of her steps. His heart beats very fast, but as Mother comes down the stairs and sees him, she only smiles her normal smile. The one she has for him when nothing is the matter.

"Are you _here_," she says "Where is your brother? "

"Dunno," Sirius answers. His voice sounds hoarse and strange to him.

But Mother doesn't seem to notice. She ruffles his hair in passing as she heads for the tapestry door to the basement.

"You will eat your evening meal upstairs with Nanny tonight," she says with her hand on the door knob. "Father wants to assume work as soon as the assistant returns, that won't be long now, and wants his meal in his study. I will help him prepare things till the assistant arrives. I'll see to it that you get some milk and biscuits sent up to you. Run along now, go find your brother, it's getting late. Father doesn't want you downstairs when we try this experiment again."

She smiles an encouraging smile before she disappears through the tapestry door.

Is she playing him? But Mother never plays games to punish him. She is always angry outright; Sirius never has any reasons to doubt her mood.

Did somebody _else_ magic the house away? The one who turned on the lamps outside?

But Mother seems to have no idea that her house just disappeared and came back again. Then she must be just as stupid as the Muggles. But Sirius knows Mother is anything but stupid.

He begins to slowly walk up the stairs to the nursery. He is unable to find any comfortable and reasonable way to understand what has just happened to him.

* * *

**Please review!**

Next Chapter: **Wandless Magic**  
_Sirius ponders what happened, does some experiments on his own, and discovers some new truths about his house, his parents and himself. _


	8. Wandless Magic

_Disclaimer_: Still JKR that owns characters and universe. Not me.

* * *

Next morning Sirius no longer remembers his fear, only the oddness of it all. If Mother didn't know about the disappearance of the house - how could it have happened at all? How could she, a Witch, not a stupid Muggle, _not_ notice that the house she was in suddenly moved somewhere else - and then moved back again half an hour later?

Besides, who would be bold enough to move the House of Black without Mother's knowledge or permission?

Nanny asks if he is still asleep. What's _with_ him? But he doesn't listen to her. At the breakfast table, none of his parents looks or behaves as if anything unusual has happened. Father nods a good-morning to Sirius, then continues with his paper. Mother tells him she will begin his education in proper mealtime behaviour sometimes next week – perhaps.

Sirius watches her closely during their meal. But he can't see anything in her behaviour that should require any kind of special education. He takes care to keep his elbows off the table and not mess with the porridge or spill any juice or make any sudden movements at all. As a result of this good behaviour, both his parents ignore him completely all the meal through.

When he enters the schoolroom, his cousins have all arrived. Bellatrix crouches in one of the broad windowsills. She keeps rolling small pieces of parchment into bullets and flip them at Narcissa, who sits bent over her reading lesson. Each time she is hit, Narcissa starts and looks around. But she can't figure out where the attack is coming from. She stares angrily at Lucius. He sits casually sideways on his chair, with his back propped against the inner wall and his legs stretched out. He gives Narcissa a gleeful smile each time she looks at him. But she doesn't seem to find the nerve to challenge him. Andromeda is absorbed in the history book and Regulus sits at the back of the room, staring at Bellatrix with his mouth open.

Sirius watches without any interest as Bellatrix continues her little prank. Through the window behind her he can see the blue skies and the crown of one rich, green tree.

But – that can't be right. The window wall of this room is the front wall of the house. It must be.

In his head, Sirius follows the turns of the stairs from the entrance hall till the second floor landing. He imagines the walk along the corridor and into the schoolroom. He is right - these windows are at the front of the house. And there _are_ no trees at the front of the house; he knows that now. There are only Muggle houses and a cobbled stone square.

Has the house been moved again? And he didn't notice?

Sirius walks up to the window next to Bellatrix. The tree seems to grow very close to the wall, cover the greater part of both window frames and almost completely shut out the view. But the tree appears oddly blurred when Sirius tries to look down its stem. He can't see the ground below.

It must be a Magical view. Like a decoration. Not a real tree or the real sky. Maybe it's not even a real window, just a painting on the wall.

Sirius touches the windowpane with his flat hand. But it feels cold and hard. Like real glass.

Why has he never noticed this before?

Lucius walks up to him and places himself with one thigh resting on the windowsill, both his hands casually in his pockets.

'What are you looking at?' he says.

'The Magical view,' Sirius answers.

'Not much to look at, is it? We have like a vast sculpture park in our drawing room windows, and a forest in the background, and Mother often changes the look of the flowers or put in some fountains when we have parties.'

His half bored tone of voice makes Sirius feel stupid. _Why_ has he never noticed this before? Do _all_ the windows in his house have Magical views? Is he the baby who believed they were all real?

How silly this is.

'So - you survived the trip to the basement yesterday?' Lucius says. 'Was it bad?'

Sirius shrugs.

'What happened to the squirrel?'

'I hid it up the attic before I went downstairs. And then I let it out through the front doors afterwards, so it can climb in the muggle trees outside.'

Lucius makes no comment to this. But Bellatrix jumps down from her windowsill.

'Poor little squirrel,' she says. 'Muggles don't _have_ any trees. Bet it was run over by one of their nasty cars. Splash! Flat little blood-cake on the street, ha-ha!'

'You're stupid,' Sirius says. 'I saw it climb up a tree myself. Trees grow everywhere if they have enough dirt for their roots. Ask Teacher. They don't belong to Wizards or Muggles. Bet you never even _been_ outside, you. Just been hopping fireplaces from house to house you have.'

This makes Bellatrix look murderous. But now Teacher enters the room and they must no longer speak without permission. They must all find their places.

They are not the same age, so they all get assigned different kinds of work for the morning's history lesson. Lucius must write a short essay on the Goblin wars of the 15th century, while Regulus is allowed to draw a picture from his own imagination of fighting Goblins and Wizards.

Sirius is asked to finish the time-line from yesterday. Teacher's voice is lower than usual when he addresses him, somehow both guarded and kind. As it often will be after he has sent Sirius downstairs to be punished. Sirius nods and starts on his assignment without hesitation, trying to do his best. As _he_ will often do after a basement trip.

He doesn't have the prettiest of handwriting. But, putting in a real effort this time, he still makes it look quite neat in the end. Teacher praises him and gives him The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) to read for the rest of the lesson.

It's meant to be a reward; Sirius understands that. Maybe to make up for all the trouble yesterday. Or keep him good today. Or both.

When Teacher first gave him this book to read, Sirius was thrilled. It's what the big children at eleven read. At the proper Wizarding school. His parents want him to familiarise himself with some of the curriculum at Hogwarts already. Then it will be easier for him once he receives a wand and is allowed to do proper Magic.

But his excitement has worn off. To read page after page about spells he is not allowed to perform doesn't feel like much of a reward.

He's not allowed to have a wand. Mother is very strict about this. Aunt Araminta, who sometimes visits Mother, and is not really Sirius' aunt but Mother's cousin, thinks this is ridiculous. She says children from proper Wizarding families ought to be introduced to a wand early on, within the safe surroundings of their own home, and under the good supervision of their own parents. She says it's an outrage how the Ministry of Magic has been able to brainwash the majority of the Magical society into believing that some random professors are the only ones responsible enough to train their young. This is just another example of the degenerating effect the acceptance of Muggleborns have had on the Magical society, she says. Just because the Muggles obviously cannot teach their children any Magic, proper Magical People, decent Fullbloods, aren't allowed to do it either!

Aunt Araminta's endless rants about the "degeneration of the Wizarding world" and "the treason of the Ministry" usually bores Sirius into a coma. If it doesn't drive him to do some awful kind of fidgeting or even speak without permission, to be unceremoniously thrown out of the drawing room and heavily punished afterwards. But he secretly agrees with her on this one. He wants a wand – preferably one with a dragon string core...

Now he is told to read from a page giving directions on how to do a "Reparo" spell correctly. The page has detailed descriptions, with diagrams, of different small variations in the wand movements suitable for different kinds of repair jobs. Sitting here, chin in hands, forced to read endless descriptions like these – meant to be _done_, not read! – makes Sirius feel utterly useless, stupid, silly, idiotic.

Teacher is at Andromeda's desk, pointing something out to her in her roll of parchment. He's not looking at Sirius. Sirius turns to the first chapter of the book of spells: 'About the Basic Principles of the Wand.' That chapter at least isn't full of stupid diagrams of wand movements, or lists of one thousand and two ways to chant the word "Reparo"...

"The discovery of the wand a very long time ago made a revolutionary difference in the lives of Witches and Wizards. Although little is now known about this, it is reasonable to assume that without the wand..."

"Revolutionary", yeah. Teacher has explained that means _huge_. Like the difference between what Sirius can do without a wand, and Mother can do with the use of hers. But how did Magical people ever get the idea of wands in the first place? And how did they live before that? They must have been able to make some kind of Magic without wands. Because otherwise, they would have believed themselves to be Muggles. They would never have thought of making any wands in the first place...

Sirius stares unseeingly into the air in front of him. He can do Magic without a wand - can't he? Sometimes. He can _will_ things. Like willing the squirrel to come to him. Willing cookie boxes to fall off their high shelves. Slow down his own fall down the stairs. Stop the blood running from his finger when he has cut it. At least from smaller cuts.

But he has willed other things that haven't happened. Like when he knocked over one of the too many small tables in the drawing room and broke a piece of Mother's finest show china. How he _willed_ the shattered pieces away when Mother entered the room. And how horribly visible on the dark carpet they still were!

So what exactly does the wand do? How does it make the difference? Would an ordinary stick make _some_ difference, even if it didn't have a core of dragon string? When the Magical people of the past first got this wand idea, they didn't have finished wands with Magical cores and all ready at hand, did they - wouldn't they have tried with an ordinary stick first, and discovered how that made things a _little_ easier?

When he has done what must be Magic, Sirius has felt like a movement rising from within and reaching out towards something - like towards the squirrel yesterday. Would the squirrel have come sooner if he had held a stick in his hand and pointed towards it? What if he had just pointed with a finger?

The spell book talks about "channelling", "narrowing" and "focusing" the Magic. A pointed finger must do this focusing better than an open hand, surely? What will happen if he starts practising the spells of this book with his index finger?

He jumps as Teacher puts his hand on his shoulder.

'I wanted you to read, Sirius,' Teacher says. But he doesn't sound too stern.

Sirius looks up at him. He still seems milder than usual; the "After Sending Sirius Down to Punishment"-effect still present in his face. Sirius decides to risk a few questions.

'I was just thinking about spells and wands, sir,' he says truthfully. 'Would it be possible to do some spells without a wand, if you, like, pointed?'

Teacher smiles.

'You are not allowed to try and do Magic at all, Sirius' he says. 'You are not old enough. You might cause serious damage both to yourself and your surroundings if you try.'

'But I do Magic,' Sirius says. 'I mean, I have, without really meaning to, but still!'

'That's different. When a Magical child has strong emotions, they will sometimes cause its Magic to influence its surroundings. That just happens, and cannot be forbidden.'

'Why just sometimes? Why not each time I really want something?'

'You may want something Magic can't do. Magic can't fix everything. But more often it will be because your powers need to be directed to work. Think about a mug of water and a glass. If you want to fill the glass with the water in the mug, it's not enough to just pour the water out at random - you need to hold the mug over the glass to fill it, right? It's the same with Magic. When your Magical powers are aroused from strong emotions, they will pour out in all directions at once. Maybe a little bit of them will hit the glass. But most of them will just be spilled on the floor, if you understand. But once in a while, enough power to make something happen will still hit the glass. Sometimes out of sheer luck, sometimes because you feel so strongly that even small waves of that undirected Magic hitting the right spot will have an effect. But not always the effect you want - as I'm sure you have noticed on occasion. Do you understand?

Sirius ponders Teacher's explanation for a moment. It does make sense. He slowly nods, still pensive.

'I can make a box of cookies fall off a shelf,' he offers. 'At least I have been able to do that - but then the box usually falls on the floor and the lid springs open and the cookies roll in all directions - I can't make it just fly into my hands quietly - but isn't this kind of Magic more dangerous then, if it is so clumsy - wouldn't it be safer if I learned it properly?'

'So you could steal your cookies more efficiently you mean?' Teacher is still smiling. 'No, but you see, since the Magic you are able to do without a wand is weaker, more diluted, you won't be able to do much serious damage with it. But the wand lets you send all your powers in one direction at once. That will heighten the force of your Magic immensely - hundred times or more. Controlling that kind of power takes a lot of concentration and is too difficult to master at your age. You might end up sending dangerously enhanced Magic in quite the wrong directions. There is a reason the proper training of Magic is postponed till you are eleven. You better not experiment with these things on your own, Sirius. You may get hurt, and hurt others, too. You don't want that.'

Teacher looks down at the book of spells, open at a very different place from where he told Sirius to read. But Teacher doesn't scorn Sirius for this. Instead, he picks the book up and closes it gently.

'All right,' he says, not looking at Sirius. 'It's good that you are curious. That's one of your best traits - it may bring you far. But be careful. The powers you hold are very strong, they are no joke, and you should use them with a lot of respect and care. As a Wizard, you can be very dangerous, Sirius. Remember that, will you?'

He doesn't wait for an answer. He turns to the rest of the class to announce break a few minutes early. Because they are all on their best behaviour and working so well, they deserve this, he says.

The rest of the school day is peaceful. After-punishment days often are. Sirius is a little nervous during lunch break. But when Teacher comes back from lunch with his parents, he doesn't look any different. Maybe he didn't tell about the squirrel, then, believing Father to know already. Maybe Sirius' parents did not want to talk about what happened yesterday either, just like Sirius does not want to think about it.

When Sirius comes down to dinner, no one mentions anything about the day before. The squirrel is still a secret. Sirius is still safe.

After dinner, he does not want to play with his little brother. He has too much on his mind. He sits on one of the bottom steps of the main stairs, staring at the front doors without really seeing them. Nanny calls to him: Does he want to come down to the kitchen with her and Regulus and have cookies? But he barely answers. When he is sure they have gone down the back stairs and he will be alone for a while, he goes up to the nursery and places a marble on the nursery room table.

He points at it with his index finger and whispers the summoning spell. A spell he has seen performed so many times.

'Accio!'

Nothing at all happens. He sits down and stares at the unmoving marble. The spell book has a description of the smooth movement of the wand hand to be used when saying the spell. Fine, he could practice that. But then there is the movement within, the actual wanting and willing.

Sirius believes he understands now. That movement within is the real Magic. Not the wand, nor the word. They only give direction to the Magic and make it stronger. The real Magic is the will.

So - if he has a wand, he doesn't need to _will_ very hard. Just point and say the spell. Use about the same amount of will as is needed to lift his hand and take the marble the Muggle way. He could of course practice the flowing movement described in the book while pointing with his index finger. Or a stick. But he doesn't really want the marble all that much.

Without a dragon string core wand to increase his own inner fire _enormously_ - he probably won't be able to move the stupid marble anyway. Not with just a bored and weak marble-moving wish to work with.

But last night - he really wanted the house to come back last night. Very, very strongly did he want the house to come back. Stronger than anything else he has ever wanted. The inner movement, the inner fire when he stepped forward and shouted: - I am Sirius Black, the heir of the House of Black, and I belong here, not you! - was very, very strong.

So - it really was his own Magic, then, that brought the house back. Who made it disappear?

* * *

In his bed that night, Sirius lies with his hands under his head, unable to sleep. The soft breathing of his sleeping brother is the only sound in the room. Except each time Regulus turns over in his bed.

Sirius sits up and looks towards the one window in the bedroom. It's placed high up on the wall, just like the two windows in the nursery. He has never been able to see anything but the skies through any of them. Now the sky outside looks dark, with no visible moon or stars. The only light in the room is the faint flickering light from the one burning torch in the bedroom corridor, entering the room through the narrow slit between the door and the threshold. He has to strain his eyes to see the outline of the window. An even blacker square in the blackness that is the outer wall.

What if it isn't the real sky he sees? What if it is a Magical view, like the one in the schoolroom? No Wizards within looking out at anything Muggle. No Muggle outside looking in at anything Wizard.

Sirius listens for a while, but no sound comes from the corridor. Then he slips quietly out of his bed and out of his bedroom. After a short moment on the top of the stairs, listening again, he walks quickly and stealthily down the four flights of stairs till he stands in the dark entrance hall.

Only the snake-formed candelabra is lit at its little table by the wall. The gas lamps are all dark. Faint voices can be heard from behind one of the doors leading off the hall - the adults are up. But Sirius doesn't make any sound as he sneaks up to the double front doors, opens the one to the left and walks out.

His foot touches the cold stone of the step outside. Sirius realises that he is barefoot and in his pajamas only. But he can't go back to dress now. He walks boldly down the four outside steps and only when he hears the soft "click" behind him does he think of a wedge or leaving the door ajar. Too late. The door with no outside door handle has locked itself against him.

But now that he is barefoot and only in his pajamas in the cold Muggle night outside, won't his will, his own, fiery Magic will, be enough to get him back in? When he needs it so very much?

His heart beats so hard that it hurts as he walks a few steps forward on the cobbled stones. He barely notices the lit Muggle street lamps, or the rustling in the paper litter made by the night wind, blowing across the open place. He takes a deep breath and turns around.

Yes. The house is gone. No flaming torches, no red bricks, no black door, no silver snake. Sirius curls up his cold toes and feels how his mouth turns dry. Then he slowly walks back towards the Muggle buildings, until he touches the place where the brick wall and the concrete wall meet. No House of Black, not to be seen, not to be touched.

But it has to be here, somehow. It must be a Magic that only works on the outside of the house, to protect it from being seen by the Muggles. It can't work on the inside, because then someone would have noticed it yesterday when he left with the squirrel. Someone would notice it now.

A permanent Magic, like the one in the school window. One of Father's protective spells...

Sirius steps back from the wall. He closes his eyes and feels the dark glowing wave of part fear, part anger that he can will to rise inside. It comes from somewhere down in his guts, a pit below the navel somewhere. He doesn't find it through thinking about it, or trying to make it. He finds it through feeling it; it's there already.

He says, in a low, commanding tone he has never before heard coming out of his own mouth: 'I am Sirius Black, the heir of the House of Black, and I want to enter my house!'

When he opens his eyes again, he's not even surprised to see the doors, the silver snake, the stone steps, the flaming torches. He walks up the first two steps, takes the head of the silver snake in his hand and pulls. Yes, it works as a door handle for him, the heir. He hears the soft clicking sound as the door unlocks itself and slides open towards him, causing him to take one awkward step downwards to prevent himself from being pushed down by the door. Safely inside, he sinks down on the lowest step of the stairs in the hall, his legs suddenly wobbly and unable to support him any longer.

To remain seated there too long turns out to be his only mistake tonight. Mother enters the hall from one of the ground floor parlours. She is not at all pleased to find him out of bed at this hour of the night, and downstairs too!

She doesn't ask him any questions. She just grabs him by his hair and drags him upstairs, hissing angrily about what a strain on her nerves his constant misbehaviour is! Once they are outside his bedroom door, she throws him down on the floor in front of it.

She doesn't scorn him or throw any nasty, punishing spell at him. Instead she declares her punishment in a low, dangerous voice. If he loves to be in the hallways of the house in the middle of the night so much, he can sleep there too. See how he likes that!

And then she takes out her wand and locks the doors of both the nursery and the bedroom against him. She turns and marches away, shooting over her shoulder that she will lock all the other doors he can reach from here as well - he just wait and see!

Sirius has no illusions about her. He knows she will do exactly what she says. And he won't be able to work his inner fire to lift her angry spells. He doesn't even try. He knows his will is not strong enough to fight hers.

It's cold and uncomfortable in the corridor on the second floor of the House of Black when you must be there all night. In only your pajamas and your feet naked and numb. Sirius hardly sleeps at all on the hard floor. He keeps waking up and has to walk and run and jump and throw himself about to get warm. Or warmer. He is cold, and tired, and very bored, and wishes very hard for the morning to come. But he knows it is far away and the night will be so very long.

But it doesn't really hurt him. That's what he thinks. Mother left the torch burning in its bracket on the wall; the corridor is not too dark. As soon as she has unlocked all the doors in the morning, she will probably be her usual self, and act as if nothing special has happened. That's just the way she is.

Sirius has done his first real Magic. All on his own. It's another secret he has against his parents. They don't know about the squirrel and they don't know about this. He is not going to tell them, ever. He can go out through the front doors and come back in any time he wants, and they won't know. He doesn't need the Floo powder or the fireplaces anymore. Miss Adhara won't know and can't tell on him when he wants to leave the house. Not all the Muggles out there are bad - he has met one already, and he was OK.

Besides, no matter how angry Mother is with him, he has proved that he belongs here, in this house. Because he is the heir. He doesn't need her to let him in. He doesn't even need a wand. His own dragon fire will is good enough.

It helps a little to think about this, when the night is at its coldest.

**THE END**

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* * *

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**A/N**: I still think this chapter is the weakest. You can feel the temperature fall, distinctively... It could do with a serious rewrite, especially the school part. But I'm not going to do that. It's too old now - I originally started this more than five years ago. I would rather spend my writer's energy elsewhere. I put it up here because I do like the rest of the story, and the whole idea of it - can still see the young boy Sirius in that family if I close my eyes... The story needs a closure - and this is what I've got. Touched up the language a bit, cut out the worst of the waffle (especially all the lecturing about wands and magic etc. etc.) and now this is as good as it is going to get.

This was originally meant to be part one of a series: **The Making of a Blood Traitor**. I wrote a few chapters in the next installment: _The Family Tree._ The story still interests me - Sirius' gradual estrangement from his family as a boy, ending in the final break after he started Hogwarts and grew old enough to put his experiences together and draw some conclusions. But I don't know if I will ever get down to writing it. This first part doesn't seem to attract too much attention, does it - so. We'll see. For now, this is as far as it goes.


End file.
